a day ago
Russian strike on warehouse destroys 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid
At least three people have been injured and 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid were destroyed after a Russian drone strike on a warehouse in Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in the early hours of Saturday.
The injured were two police officers and a civilian, according to local officials. The damage from the strike is estimated at around $3 million. The aid was set to be provided to people who were internally displaced, as well as to residents in frontline areas of the war.
Shops, a multi-storey building and a public transport stop were also reportedly damaged in the attack.
Oleksandr Beluga, founder of the NGO Beluga UA, told local media ""Now everything has been destroyed, two days ago we received help from 5 trucks. There is approximately $3 million worth of damage here."
Aside from Zaporizhzhia, the regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnipro were also targeted in an attack which consisted of a total of 58 Shahedattack UAVs, as well as various types of imitation drones, reported the Ukrainian air force.
43 were neutralised, they said, with 23 being shot down and 20 having their signals jammed.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military also reported that it had carried out overnight drone strikes targeting two Russian chemical plants that were tied to the production of explosives.
"As part of efforts to reduce (Russia's) ability to produce explosives and ammunition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' drone systems, in coordination with other Defense Forces units, struck critical facilities of Russia's military-industrial complex overnight," said Ukraine's General Staff.
The chemical plants were reportedly located in Stavropol Krai and Samara Oblast. Both were identified as major suppliers of raw materials and components for the production of Russia's weapons and fuel.
The Stavropol governor confirmed the strike, saying that drone debris had landed in the city's industrial zone.
On Friday, the bodies of 1,200 soldiers were returned to Ukraine as part of an agreement reached between Russia and Ukraine during their 2 June peace talks in Istanbul.
Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War released a statement saying that Russia returned 1,200 bodies, and 'according to the Russian side, the bodies belong to Ukrainian citizens, in particular military personnel.'
It was the only tangible achievement of the Istanbul talks, with 1,212 bodies also being returned by Russia earlier this week, with 27 dead soldiers going the other way.
The two sides conducted a prisoners of war swap on Thursday, which included badly wounded and gravely ill captives. Their numbers were not disclosed, however.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organisation has issued a grim warning that 'cooperation with the Mossad will result in the maximum legal punishment', effectively issuing a death penalty for communications seen as favouring Israel's attacks on Iran.
In a statement shared on social media Telegram earlier today the Revolutionary Guards cited articles 6, 7, 8, and 10 of the 'Law on Combating Hostile Actions of the Zionist Regime'.
'Any form of intelligence cooperation with the Mossad, interaction or exchange of information with official or unofficial individuals affiliated with the Zionist regime, as well as any cultural, media, or propaganda activity, or assistance that supports, promotes, or legitimizes the Zionist regime, is considered a criminal offence,' under these articles, according to the statement, which adds that any perpetrators will face 'the maximum punishment'.
Babak Kamiar, the head of Euronews' Persian desk, said that the impact of this will be to force local media into silence.
The maximum punishment indicated in the sentence is 'the death penalty for sure', according to Kamiar.
'From this point on, nothing will be published except praise for the regime — which, of course, was to be expected,' Kamiar said.
'This will also include international media outlets that have correspondents in Iran, making our work even more difficult, as most of our information relied on domestic sources,' Kamiar added.
Although state-run, semi-official, and IRGC-affiliated media had already maintained tight control over the flow of information, the situation is now expected to worsen, according to Euronews' Kamiar.
